Fanning the Blame: Media Accountability, Climate, and Crisis on the Australian 'Fire Continent'

• In Event: Framing the Environment

Abstract

This paper draws from an investigation into the dynamics of the media-policy nexus in the aftermath of environmental disaster. Through media analysis, it examines the ways debate over bushfire protection policy was framed and made culturally meaningful, and thereby politically consequential, in the wake of the worst bushfire in modern Australian history. In February 2009, bushfires of extreme ferocity swept through the hinterland near Melbourne, resulting in the deaths of 173 people. This led to a Royal Commission amid debate over the use of prescribed burning to reduce bushfire hazard. Longitudinal analysis of local, state and national mainstream media coverage (2009-16) reveals blame games that targeted environmentalists and the government, which near-silenced meaningful discussion of the complexity of fire science or impacts of climate change on weather conditions. By exploring the media’s constitutive role in crisis response, the paper raises questions of the democratic function of post-crisis journalism in Australia.

Authors

• Philip Chubb, Monash U

• Deb Anderson, Monash U

• Monika Djerf-Pierre, Department of Journalism, Media and Communication/U of Gothenburg